Author's Note:

Thank you Whisperwings for your betaing skills!

The day had past by quickly past since he had given Rebecca her serving of lunch, but John Silver was still worried about the young woman. She had seemed troubled by what had happened to her and the young man was concerned for her health.

John decided to go visit the young woman, intending to pick up her plate and to hopefully talk with her once more. The young man gently knocked at the door, discovering that it was opened. He silently entered the room and noticed that Rebecca had fallen asleep.

He looked at the plate of food on Rebecca's writing desk. The meal had been left untouched, which raised more worry in the young man because he knew that Rebecca had not eaten, and it looked like she had not even moved from her bed.

Silently, John walked beside Rebecca's bed and knelt down beside her. He noticed that the cut on the young woman's cheek had an unusual appearance.

After further examination, John realized that the wound was infected. The cut would need immediate treatment before its infection had a chance to severely harm Rebecca.

There was no wonder that the young woman was unusually weary and hadn't eaten.

The young man looked over the young woman. Her cheeks had flushed up to an unusual cherry red, and he could sense that she was running a slight fever.

John quickly rose to his feet and hurried out of the room, he needed to find the ship's medical supplies and hopefully would be able to borrow Simon's aid for a while.

"Rebecca?" A gentle voice spoke to the slumbering woman.

Rebecca moaned softly, coming to, and she opened her pale green eyes. She let out a groan as she felt the wound on her cheek throb in pain. Her eyes finally focused on her surroundings and she looked at the young man sitting at her writing desk, facing her.

"John?" She asked groggily, surprised that the sailor was in her room of all places.

Before she could interrogate the young man on why he was in the room, Rebecca winced at the pain that had suddenly spread from her cheek to her abdomen and let out a long groan, muffled through the covers on her bed.

John looked at Rebecca, his eyes wide in uncharacteristic alarm. The young man looked to be at a complete loss of what to do, until a call came from the other side of the door.

The young man opened the door and allowed Simon to pass under his arm as the young cabin boy hefted a bowl of steaming water into the room. Simon set the bowl down onto Rebecca's writing desk and looked down at the young woman in concern.

"She's going to need some antibiotics for her infection." Simon hypothesized quickly. He pulled a small pouch out of a pocket in his trousers and looked over its contents. "This should do…" He plucked a small vial containing a dark powder and shook it.

"Ground-up yuppi pits?" John enquired.

"Yep." Simon nodded curtly. "I always pack it… the stuff does more healing than it does damage, and it can buy extra time for just about any wound." The cabin boy cleared his throat as he dissolved a small bit of the powder into a glass of water. "Plus it's probably the cheapest and most accessible healing ingredient out there."

Then Mr. Gibson's noticeable voice called from down the hallway. "Cabin Boy! Silver!"

Simon winced, and glanced at Rebecca. "Listen, John, could you go see what Octopus-Face wants?" He cleared his throat. "I'll stay with Rebecca for a while… okay?"

"Uh…" John rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the young cabin boy strangely. "Sure thing, Si." He then exited the cabin to see what the head cook wanted.

The young child sighed. "I told you the crew would be suspicious." Sylvie stated.

"And I told you," Rebecca responded, wincing from another pain in her abdomen. "I really don't care what the crew thinks…"

Sylvie sighed. "I'm under the impression that this isn't only an infection of that wound that's causing you pain." She motioned to the cut on Rebecca's cheek.

Rebecca weakly laughed, "Clever girl…" She winced. "I'm afraid that I'm suffering from the woman's aliment, as inconvenient as it is."

"Ah…" Sylvie nervously rubbed the back of her head. "I have two elder sisters, so I catch your drift." She cleared her throat. "So, you're probably not going to want to get out of bed for a few days and you'll get some crazy cravings for random stuff."

Rebecca chuckled. "No, I'm not that high-maintenance…" She winced. "The first day's always the worst, then I'm usually capable of doing things for the rest of the week."

Sylvie cleared her throat. "Anyway, I've probably learnt a little too much information, but whatever." She handed Rebecca the glass of water in which the ground-up yuppi pits had been dissolved. "This'll hopefully help you with that infection." She smiled reassuringly as Rebecca took an experimental sip at the concoction.

Rebecca winced at the surprisingly bitter taste of the tonic. She shivered. "This stuff brings back memories." She murmured before taking another sip of the tonic.

Sylvie giggled quietly, but was interrupted when John entered the room. Thankfully the disguised youth had enough time to change personas and cleared her throat loudly.

"So, what's the news?" Simon enquired.

John sighed. "That octopus-faced dunderhead nearly destroy everything in the galley by overloading the main power grid while he was cooking dinner." He scoffed. "I'm surprised he didn't cut the power from the ship."

Rebecca laughed nervously. "Knock on wood, John…" She sipped the tonic and gulped the bitter liquid with a grimace. "Wouldn't want anything else bad to happen."

"Yeah." Simon agreed with the young woman. "We're already more than halfway to Los Terrano… and we don't want anything to stall our time."

John and Rebecca caught each other's eyes and somehow sensed that their thoughts were identical. They didn't want this voyage to end just yet, even after all that had happened.

Rebecca looked away down at the glass in her hand. She swished around the minute contents within the cup before she gulped down the last of the bitter tonic and sighed.

"I'll be fine, you two…" She cleared her throat. "You'd better go help out in the galley."

Simon and John nodded. The young cabin boy took Rebecca's glass from her and opened the door. John hesitantly followed, carrying the bowl of cooling water under one arm and closing the door with his opposite hand.

Rebecca sighed and looked at the floor of her room. Her pocketbook lay amongst her effects, soundlessly calling to her to write in it.

Author's Note:

Thank you readers for your reviews!

MG#6